[News] Chavez Announces $3 Billion for Venezuela’s “Energy” Revolution

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Chavez Announces $3 Billion for Venezuela’s “Energy” Revolution

March 31st 2008, by Chris Carlson - 
Venezuelanalysis.com   http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3310

March 31, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)- Venezuelan 
President Hugo Chavez approved funds and 
announced new plans for an "energy" revolution on 
his weekly talk show Aló Presidente yesterday. 
The president inaugurated a new "socialist" 
community of houses built from oil derivatives, 
and announced that Venezuela would be a major 
producer of oil derivatives such as fertilizers and plastics by the year 2013.

Broadcasting from the central state of Carabobo, 
President Chavez toured a new community of 459 
houses made of Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a 
plastic material produced from petroleum. 
Venezuela's state-owned petrochemical industry 
produces the PVC from the by-products of the oil 
industry, making it cheaper than traditional building materials.

The first of its kind, the community is entirely 
made up of houses from the Venezuelan state 
company Petrocasa, which manufactures the plastic 
forms to be filled with concrete. Venezuela plans 
to construct these "socialist" communities around 
the country, and around 60,000 houses of this kind per year.

"This is the first Petrocasa community that we 
have inaugurated, but we are going to fill 
Venezuela with these houses," Chavez said.

The new housing program is only one part of what 
President Chavez calls the "energy" revolution, a 
program to develop various industries for the 
processing of raw materials, such as the petrochemical industry.

Chavez announced that the Venezuelan government 
will invest around $20 billion over the next six 
years in the development of 52 industrial 
projects, and approved a total of $2.96 billion 
to be invested this year. The president 
emphasized that under previous governments these 
kinds of investments were not possible.

"Before, to make this kind of investment, they 
had to call the International Monetary Fund (IMF) 
or the World Bank, or turn the country over to 
international investors.  Not now, because we 
have created our own development funds," he said.

The investments will come from Venezuela's 
national development fund Fonden, which, as 
Chavez noted, now has around $35 billion dollars 
available for investment in the country's 
development. The national development fund is fed 
by a portion of state income diverted from the nation's international reserves.

Chavez emphasized that many of the new industrial 
projects will be placed in the southern region of 
the country to give economic development to 
poorer, underdeveloped areas. The government also 
estimates that more than 600,000 new jobs will be 
created as a direct result of the program.

The president talked by satellite to leaders from 
a nearby community where another 700 of the new 
houses are being constructed, but he insisted 
that the government speed up the construction of 
new housing, and proposed a new tax on oil profits to pay for it.

"We have to increase the pace of replacing 
shantytowns with real communes, and communities," 
said Chavez, "where the people can live fully, 
with the highest sum of happiness."

Chavez also talked by satellite to Food Minister 
Felix Osorio for the inauguration of a new 
"Mercal," the government-subsidized food markets. 
He reiterated that Venezuela is working to become 
self-sufficient in its food supply, and thanked 
the governments of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay 
for providing new technology needed to install 
factories in Venezuela for the production of foodstuffs.

He added that Venezuela will soon be 
self-sufficient in food production, but until 
enough food can be produced domestically, they 
will continue to import food from their neighbors.

"We are working on projects to produce all the 
chicken that we consume.  But, meanwhile, since 
our national production isn't enough, we are 
bringing the best production from Argentina, 
Brazil, Nicaragua, Colombia, Ecuador, and other countries," Chavez said.

The Venezuelan president also insisted that the 
United States government was carrying out plans 
to create food shortages in the country in order 
to destabilize his government. He made reference 
to the previous cases of Nicaragua and Cuba, 
where the US government blocked food imports with 
the intention of destabilizing their governments.

"When Bush talks about food shortages, he's not 
talking about the reality, but rather his 
desires. But I guarantee that we are going to 
defeat him, because now the people of Venezuela 
are better fed; and not only with food, but with 
health, housing, work, and industry," he said.

Source URL: http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/
Printed: March 31st 2008
License: Published under a Creative Commons 
license (by-nc-nd). See creativecommons.org for more information.




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